Design and analysis of adaptive strategies for locating internet-based servers in MANETs

A critical problem in providing Internet access to Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) is how the mobile hosts can locate Internet-based servers efficiently in a dynamic, unstructured network. This paper studies adaptive strategies that combine both proactive advertising by the servers and on-demand discovery by the mobile hosts. The adaptive strategies determine the relative rate of proactive advertising and on-demand discovery according to system characteristics such as host mobility level and offered load. Our simulation study reveals that, compared to the previous proactive strategies and reactive strategies, the adaptive strategies reduce network traffic by several times when the network has a moderate offered load and a low or high level of host mobility.